


A Dying Man's Words

by Deannie



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV), Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Crossover, M/M, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 04:15:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11395146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: Chris was watching Ezra, who was tidying his cards and collecting his winnings with sharp efficiency. “If you gentlemen will excuse me,” he said, drawl slow and unconcerned, though Chris saw the urgency, “this night has been profoundly long, and even a gambler like me must at some point find his… bed.”And without waiting for their goodbyes, he was out the door like a shot.





	A Dying Man's Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [farad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/gifts).



> I hope you like this, farad!

**November 12, 1887  
Four Corners, New Mexico Territory**

 

It was hotter than it should be on an early morning in November, not that Chris Larabee minded much. He’d acclimated to the desert, as Ezra would say, and he hardly noticed a little heat wave now and then.

Ezra also figured that wearing all that black for so many years had burned out any sense of temperature in Chris’s body, but Chris had learned over the last ten years that, mostly, Ezra was full of shit.

Though to be fair, the lighter colors Chris favored these days were cooler. Damn gambler.

Speaking of, Ezra Standish himself was far too busy to notice even the most intense heat wave. The previous afternoon, a stage full of too-rich businessmen, looking to buy themselves land and fame in California, had ridden into town and decided that it was a fine place to stop and rest. And gamble. They were really bad gamblers.

Still, it was almost amusing to watch Ezra spend the night and then some taking whatever cash they were willing to part with. Reminded Chris of the days when gambling was all Ezra had. Gambling and scheming. Nowadays he spent more time managing what seemed like the whole damn town than plying his trade. And some days, when the younger man didn’t make it to Chris’s bed or Chris didn’t make it to his, he almost regretted the fact that Ezra had become a respected town leader.

Ezra was in his element today, though. Unlike Chris, the gambler’s hair hadn’t even started to turn gray, though he wore it shorter than he used to, so maybe it was and he just hid it better. He was still neat and trim and dandified, and while his fancy coats were a more expensive weave these days, they were the expected bright and flashy colors. He’d never really stray far from his roots, no matter how respectable he got.

And he’d never stop gambling anyone who wanted to face him, including those businessmen headed for the coast. There were two of them left at his table now, as the sun was coming up. Dr. Tillerson, a surgeon from Boston, and Franklin Daly, a restaurant man from New York City.

“Well, Mr. Standish,” Dr. Tillerson said as he sat back and sighed, relieved of yet another pot of coins. “I would accuse you of cheating, but I can see you’re simply very good at what you do.”

“That I am, sir.” Ezra’s smile was genuine and Chris grinned knowingly. Ezra was a man sure of himself these days. He’d never needed to cheat, and now he wasn’t as easily provoked when accused of it. “I do hope your time in California is profitable.”

“More profitable than my time here, at least,” Tillerson joked, gathering the small pile of bills Ezra had left him with. He looked over at Daly, who had a larger pile of bills but prospects just as low. “You staying, Frank? See if he can clean you out completely?”

Daly shook his head with a wry look. “Thinking about it.”

“Hey Chris!” JD Dunne dropped down into the seat next to Chris, radiating energy. Marriage and years hadn’t calmed the boy down any, though Chris knew from experience that Casey’s pregnancy was going to change things in short order. Nothing like a little one screaming at all hours to dampen your enthusiasm. “Did you hear the news?”

Chris was still watching Ezra and his victims at the next table. He barely flicked a look at the young sheriff. “What news, JD?”

“Doc Holliday died,” JD exclaimed, waving a copy of the Clarion. The paper flapped in front of Chris’s eyes, and he almost missed the tightening of Ezra’s lips and the slight paling of his face.

“Said he died in bed with his boots off,” JD was going on. “One of the books I read about him said he never figured to go that way.”

Chris was watching Ezra, who was tidying his cards and collecting his winnings with sharp efficiency. “If you gentlemen will excuse me,” he said, drawl slow and unconcerned, though Chris saw the urgency, “this night has been profoundly long, and even a gambler like me must at some point find his… bed.”

And without waiting for their goodbyes, he was out the door like a shot.

********

Chris didn’t see him again that day, though he knew from Mrs. Potter and old Mr. Guseton that he’d been around.

“Seemed right distracted,” Guseton said, looking puzzled. “Normally, he chats and such, but this time he just tallied and done his bookkeeping and off he went.”

Chaucer stood quiet in his stall for most of the day, and Chris made a decision to just let Ezra have his head. Whatever it was they had together—and hell, after seven years, Chris still didn’t know—he’d learned a long time ago that the way to get on Ezra’s bad side was to push him when he wasn’t ready to be pushed.

Didn’t stop Chris worrying, though.

 

“You seen Ezra?” Nathan asked that evening, sitting down to the table where Chris and Buck and Vin were eating dinner. The healer nodded his thanks to Joe as the bartender dropped a beer in front of him. “Wanted to thank him for sending Dr. Tillerson my way.” He took a long draught of beer and smiled. “Jacob went to medical school in Chicago. Says one of his professors has started up a surgery school in Santa Fe and Ezra told him I might be interested in learning more about it.”

Which was Ezra all over. What bigotry he’d learned in his life had been leached out of him in his years in Four Corners, and he saw Nathan as an equal. Maybe more than equal, Chris sometimes thought.

Chris sipped at his whiskey, looking at the full saloon that was devoid of gambler. “Nope,” he replied. “Figure he has something on his mind.”

Buck nodded. “Reckon you’re right,” he agreed. “Sarah-Jo said he was ‘sad-looking’ when he came into the mercantile.”

Vin snorted. “I’m surprised you and Sarah-Jo were talking about another man like that.”

“I’m surprised you and Sarah-Jo were _talking_ about anything at all,” Chris offered with a deadpan voice. Buck was caught this time. Truly. Chris wouldn’t be surprised if there was a wedding announcement soon between his bachelor friend and the smart, headstrong woman Mrs. Potter had hired on a few years ago.

Buck looked affronted, but it dissolved into an acknowledging smile and from there to a thoughtful look. “Still, she did say he left real abruptly when Mr. MacAfee came in to talk about the news with Mrs. Potter. Usually, Ezra’s all about going over the doings of the day.”

Chris remembered his lover’s abrupt departure from the saloon that morning. _News of the day…_

He drained the rest of his whiskey and stood up. He hadn’t seen Ezra go up to his room, and he didn’t figure the younger man would have gone to the ranch without him. There was one place he might be though.

“Reckon I’ll go see if I can hunt him down,” he said quietly, and headed out into the fading sunlight.

“Chris?”

He turned toward the sound to see Mary Travis striding across the street toward him.  Their romance had died before it ever really got started, and they’d stayed firm friends. In fact, Mary had developed friendships with all the men who’d been the Magnificent Seven back when something like that was needed.

“Evening, Mary,” he greeted her.

She held out an envelope to him. “If you see Ezra, can you make sure he gets this?”

Chris turned the envelope over to see the front. Ezra’s name was written in a rough, unsteady hand, the P in Ezra P. Standish thicker than the rest and underscored. Beneath it, in an altogether clearer and more feminine script, was “The Clarion Newspaper Office, Four Corners, New Mexico Territory.”

“Why don’t you get it to him when you see him?” he asked curiously, making to hand it back.

Mary’s face drew into a frown. “Mr. Jensen said he got a wire from Colorado early yesterday morning, enquiring about whether Ezra Standish was still in residence in Four Corners and, if not, whether anyone in the town knew of a forwarding address.”

Chris looked at the envelope again. Ezra’s mama would never think he’d’ve moved on, but if something happened to her sudden-like, maybe someone else wouldn’t. The writing of his name didn’t look anything like Maude’s hand, but still…

“He returned a message that the correspondance could be sent to the newspaper,” Mary continued. “When it came by special rider today, I…” She shrugged. “I worried.”

 _Well now, that makes two of us,_ Chris thought darkly. He nodded to Mary with what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “I’ll make sure he gets it as soon as possible,” he promised.

Mary didn’t seem surprised when he didn’t wait for her to say anything in response.

 

Five years ago, a few of the women of Four Corners got mightily sick of the slipshod education they were all managing to give their young ones. Like good citizens, they decided to build a school. Like most good intentions, the place didn’t go nearly far enough.

The building was built at the top of a rise east of town, within plain sight of a lot of those well-meaning mamas. It was small and cold and all they could afford at the time, and it served for a bit. The new school was bigger and sturdier, midway between the town and the rich ranchers who’d footed the bill to expand it when their own children needed schooling.

In the beginning, a lot of people had helped out with the teacher. Mary and Josiah and Mrs. Caldecott, the seamstress, were regular features, teaching reading and history and math. Others came when they could and gave what they could. Vin could teach the children how to make their way in the land nearby, and Ezra? Well, he taught them about the world beyond the scrub oak and hills. Cities and politics and geography and storytelling the likes of which were never heard before in these parts.

Of course, now they had a proper schoolteacher and the rest of them had returned to their work-a-day worlds.

But Ezra was still drawn to that dilapidated little schoolhouse on the hill. Chris wondered if it was a yearning for the kind of life they’d all had a part in securing for the children in this town. Safe and home with their mamas and in one place for year after year.

Whatever the reason, Chris wasn’t all that surprised to find his lover sitting on the back steps of the building, staring into the dying day.

 _Dying._ The letter was suddenly heavy in Chris’s hand as a number of things came together for him. Ezra’s escape from the saloon this morning, his refusal to go over the latest news at Mrs. Potter’s. It all came to him in a flash: A dying man’s words on an envelope sent from GS, Colorado.

Chris sat on the step beside the younger man. “You got a letter,” he offered evenly. “Was sent to Mary by special rider.”

“Too late,” Ezra commented, taking the envelope. He snorted sadly. “I expect I’m not the only one to receive the news so tardily.”

He opened the envelope and removed two pieces of paper. The first was written in that same precise script as the address on the outside and dated four days before. Chris held in his surprise when Ezra started reading it aloud. Maybe whatever they had was more than Chris sometimes worried it was, for the private man to share this.

“Dear Mr. Standish,” Ezra read quietly. “Upon his death, Dr. John Henry Holliday requested that the enclosed missive be sent to you as speedily as possible. I hope it finds you, and I wish to convey my condolences. I have nursed Dr. Holliday through the last few weeks, and I am very sorry for your loss. Despite all stories to the contrary, he seems a fine and polite man.”

Ezra chuckled. “Lord, he truly _was_ dying, wasn’t he?” he murmured. “I doubt more than a handful of people have called John ‘fine and polite’ without laughing.”

Chris nodded. “You didn’t tell me you knew Doc Holliday.”

His lover sighed, and Chris grimaced. He hadn’t meant to say that, but it was one hell of a surprise. He’d known Ezra for more than a decade. Surely this would have come up?

“He is… _was_ my cousin. Of a sort—I’ve never actually been clear on whether we are blood relations or not, and neither of us much cared, really.” He grinned that sad-loving grin that he reserved for discussions of family. “He was already a ne’er-do-well at four when Mother sent me to live with his family for a time.” The grin turned cheeky. “I may have been the one to teach him to play poker.”

“I’d say you were getting back at your mother, but…” Chris trailed off with a smile of his own.

Ezra nodded in acknowledgment. “Yes, well, the joke was on me when we met up again after his mother died and he won two hundred dollars off of me in one night.” He looked out at the coming night and rose fluidly. He folded the letters and slipped them into the envelope. “I believe it’s time to return to the lights of home,” he said quietly.

Chris fell in step with him as his lover headed down the hill. “You’re not going to read what he said?” he asked.

Ezra smiled blithely, as if the whole thing were forgotten. “It’s dark out, Mr. Larabee,” he told him. “How could a man read anything out here?”

Chris shook his head. He would never understand the damn man.

But that didn’t keep him from worrying, either.

**********

Later that night, once Chris has fallen asleep, his body warm and comforting on Ezra's featherbed, the gambler rose silently and slipped that dreaded envelope out of his pocket. Turning up the lamplight as much as he dared, he began to read his cousin's scrawled words.

Dear Ezra,

I hope this letter finds you a damn sight better than it finds me. Damn TB was going to get me sooner or later, I guess. Just a damn shame I couldn't be shot and buried already, before it burned the life out of me.

I wanted to say some things to some people. Things I've maybe said before, but things that bear repeating. Unlike me, you're a better man than you give yourself credit for, cousin. I know you've found peace there in New Mexico, I know you found the kind of life I never was strong enough to really live. Always was too God damned scared of what would happen if I went as far as I could. But that's a letter for a different man—and damn sure NOT a cousin! We'll see if I ever have the courage to write it.

Ezra, live long. Be careful. Cousin, there are things in this world we never dreamed of—things we'd never  _want_ to dream of. Evil the likes of which I would never have believed could exist. I suppose it was my own damn fault I fell into that world. My own wants and needs. Here's hoping your wants and needs are focused on someone safer than Wyatt Earp. Though I'm not entirely sure Chris Larabee qualifies.

Damn, I can't use a pen for long these days—hands are cramping so badly I couldn't hope to hold a gun if I had to. Guess I don't have to now, do I?

Time's up. Don't be that pain in the ass I know you are.

Warmly,

John Henry

Ezra looked at the initial in the middle of his name on the envelope, the way John had underscored it. 

 _You're a pain in the ass, Ezra,_ he'd growled at him when they were young.  _Hell, I'm betting_ that's _what the P stands for, isn't it?_

He and John had been discussing their "wants and needs," Ezra the older cousin, better versed in hiding his affections and sussing out those who might welcome them. It was a bond that went beyond whatever specious familial connection they shared. Wyatt Earp had been... a flame. Something John Henry had been drawn to again and again. Ezra wondered idly if his cousin ever wrote Wyatt that letter.

"You okay?"

Chris's voice shocked Ezra out of his contemplations.

 _Live long_.

Ezra put the letter to the side, wondering at the darkness that had followed after that one firm injunction.  _Live long. Be careful._ He rose and lowered the lamp's light, sliding back under the covers and into Chris's arms. _Far too late for that second wish, cousin,_ he thought wryly. He kissed his lover long and ardently, to prove he was, indeed, okay.

Chris tightened his arms around him, drawing him close. "So... what's with the P in your name?" he asked out of the blue. "The way he wrote it? Seems like there's a story there."

Ezra grinned. "There always is," he noted.

Chris didn't push further and instead started to fall back asleep, and Ezra sighed. John Henry Holliday  _had_ been a better man than he gave himself credit for. Ezra just wished he'd lived long enough to discover that for himself.

*********

 the end


End file.
